


All the things left unsaid

by uraniafromspace



Category: Life with Derek
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:55:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23705722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uraniafromspace/pseuds/uraniafromspace
Summary: Casey finds the love of her life.
Relationships: Casey McDonald/Derek Venturi
Comments: 16
Kudos: 80





	All the things left unsaid

  
  


Casey is 22 years old when she meets him. He is sensitive, plays the piano and he makes her breakfast Sunday mornings barefoot. He never wears shoes on Sunday’s if he can help it. He is a Professor and a writer (a good one, recognized, with awards) and Casey hangs on to every word he says like they will save her.

Derek instantly hates him, but then, Derek has always had a penchant for hating her boyfriends. 

She asks him what is it this time that puts him off Alex. 

“Jesus, Case, the guy is an old geezer. Soon enough you’ll be changing his diapers.”

That is hardly true. Alex is 37, with an established career and a name people recognize. Casey herself has just started an internship at a big law firm, by her father’s recommendation. She hasn’t finished grad school yet, but she feels something for him that is completely different from anything she has ever felt before.

She rolls her eyes at that. Derek has always had a flair for the dramatics (and maybe that’s why he had chosen a career in the movie industry). 

“Don’t exaggerate, Derek. It’s not like I’m dating Hugh Hefner.”

And she wasn’t. Alex was mature, sure, but it wasn’t as if their relationship was creepy or anything.

“It is creepy, and wrong.” He says with his eyebrows raised.

(Sometimes it felt like he could read her mind).

“It is not. I know he has more life experiences than me...”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“But I am terribly happy, so I’d appreciate it if you were nicer to him.”

He looks at her and accesses, stares a little into her blue eyes with his brown ones, searching. His face is composed in a perfect mask when he concedes.

“Only to his face. But I’ll still talk shit about him in his back.”

That was all she was hoping for.

Alex proposes to her on the middle of spring. The flowers are starting to bloom, and the trees are just getting lush again. Everything seems to be coming alive, like in a fairy tale. 

They’re sitting in a park, having a picnic and watching as the sun sets down the horizon. They have spent all of the afternoon talking about modern literature and discussing unknown writers from all over the world, when he goes suddenly quiet and pensive. 

He affirms, proudly, that he loves her, and that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. Then, he declares her a poem, and when he goes down on one knee, she feels her chest tighten, all out of air.

Casey watches the scene unfold around her, and it’s beautiful and perfect, the spring, the sunset, the poem, her fiancé… She feels like a bubble, filled with joy, ready to explode (with happiness). 

She gets married right after she passes the bar exam. 

It is a big ceremony and all of her family, friends and their parents are there.

Nora cries when she enters, and Marti rolls her eyes at that, but she manages not to look like the infernal teenager that she is while she throws rose petals on the dais.

Lizzie is in the front, smiling affectionately by Edwin’s side, who is inconspicuously trying to adjust his tie. George is also smiling, holding little Robbie’s hands and failing not to get teary eyed. 

Her father walks her to the aisle with the most solemn face he has, but she can see his lips twitching at the corners. 

And then, lastly, there is Derek, who stands impossibly tall and handsome in his black suit, hair a constant mess. 

Casey had tried to make him tidy it earlier, but he had said it never stayed put, and had dared her to comb it. He had stood in front of her, knees bent and dark, mysterious eyes staring right at her, while she ran her fingers through the locks, trying to make sense out of them. 

“It really is impossible.” She sighed frustrated.

“See?” He had said, voice tired and old. “I always tell you when you’re wrong, princess.” 

Casey stares at him for a moment too long, because his eyes are the only ones in the crowd that hold a tinge of sadness.

Her own smile falters, but she resolutely continues on her path, because Alex is there at the end and he looks stunningly beautiful smiling at her, and he is smart and educated and cult and the love of her life.

Casey cooks her husband dinner most nights. It’s not like she is obligated or anything, but she does, because she knows he savors every bite, complimenting her on how good everything she does tastes. He genuinely means it and she takes the praise, holds it tight near her heart.

Cooking for Alex is a passion of hers, something she does with all her devotion, while he grades papers and talks to her from the kitchen counter. 

She is positively certain those moments are perfect, and nothing could ever compare. 

There are other times though, she isn’t quite sure if she made the right decision. 

He is busy, and leaves her too alone with her own thoughts, and though she tried to work on it, Casey has realized she has a problem with loneliness. She doesn’t really like it about herself, but it’s true all the same. She can’t stand the feeling.

So, Alex goes to congresses and works so much she can barely register it. And she doesn’t want to concern him with her childish problems, so she remains put in her place, like a good little wife (like a grown ass woman who has her life all figured out).

“Is he leaving you too alone? You know you need company, Case, or you start getting all clingy and acting like a lost puppy.” Derek asks her once, when she has managed an excuse to call him for the third time that day. 

“What?” Casey utters, baffled. “No! Whatever gave you _that_ idea?”

“Please.” He scoffs from the other end of the line. “You haven’t called me this much since you went to dance in New York.” 

So, maybe New York had turned out to be a bust. It had too much space, and the people of her company didn’t care about making friends, and though she had Jesse, he just wasn’t enough. It was a big city, made for people who knew how to live with themselves, and Casey wasn’t one of them. 

“I wasn’t alone in there.” 

Even though she had grown, she still liked to play the denial card once in a while. It never gets old, she thinks, poking into the hole of the sleeve of her sweater. 

“Sure, and I didn’t do weed in college.”

He can’t see her, but she feels the need roll her eyes at him and scold him anyway.

“You know I hate it when you talk about those things. They kill all of your neurons, and you don’t have much to spare as it is.” 

“Classic Casey. Burn to run from the topic. ” Derek says mockingly, pausing for a second before he continues. “Listen, I’d love to chit chat, but I have a date in twenty minutes, so you gotta be quick about whatever this is.” 

“Oh… I’m sorry.” She stops awkwardly. Sometimes she forgets he has a life of which she’s not a part of, now. It’s not like he lets her in the dark, but still, she misses it when they knew every single thing of what the other was doing (unwillingly). It’s not something she wants to feel, but she does, anyway, like a stone in her shoe she can’t get rid of – her memories of their youth. “I can just hang up.” 

“Yes, please.” He sighs. “Call Liz or Marti about whatever this is. Jesus, it’s like you lost all of your contact list. What happened to the bane of your existence shit? You didn’t nag me as much then.”

“You became much less of a prick than you used to be in high school. And you realized you had a brain that you could actually use, sometimes, for things other than pranks. That made you much more tolerable.”

“Well, now I know what I have to do to get you off my back. Nice talk, Case, bye!”

Derek doesn’t wait for her reply to hang up, so she sits on her couch, all alone with a glass of wine and some lame movie, trying not to feel too sorry about herself, even though she feels absolutely pathetic, all the same. 

Most of the times, she feels like an overgrown child, who doesn’t know what to do with herself. And, maybe, all the right answers would have been there for her, except she doesn’t know where to start looking for them, and, sometimes, she wonders if that is the reason she really married an older man, but that’s too deep into psychology for her. She doesn’t want to know what that says about her and her relationships, so she simply avoids the topic.

Casey is tearing up to the ending of Coco, hugging one of her pillows and holding her glass of alcohol when her doorbell rings. She shouldn’t open it right away, because that might be dangerous, but alcohol has made her mind all fuzzy, so she just opens the door to her apartment, expecting to see one of her neighbors asking for sugar or whatever. 

Instead, she sees Derek in a dark blue dress shirt and fancy shoes. His hair looks perfectly disheveled, like he had perfected years ago, in his high school days, to make the girls swoon. He holds a delivery bag in one of his hands, and some more wine on the other. 

(It strikes her sometimes with glaring force how much he knows her, and she feels an affection so intense for him it almost overwhelms her).

“What happened to the date?” She inquires, lamely, upon his sight. 

He only shrugs, non-committal. 

“She was boring. Only knew how to talk about acting and Instagram. Fuck it.” 

Casey doesn’t think this is true in the least, Derek hasn’t dated actresses since an incident from years ago when it had gotten mixed with his job, but she takes the bait, doesn’t question him, just lets him in with the sushi and wine. 

“Just so you know, we’re watching Disney tonight.”

He stares at her exasperated, almost panicked, then his eyes settle in the wine bottle she has been drinking all night, and his eyes seem to grow warm, like he understands, but he still settles for a comeback. 

“I should have just ordered for you and stayed home, I got enough of crazyness on the date.”

The next movie they watch is Aladdin, and she sings to all the songs with her feet resting on his lap, one of his hands clutching them the whole time, while he pretends to snore from the other side of the couch. 

She loves Alex with all of her heart. But he doesn’t like her friends, says they are too immature, aren’t as career driven as she is, claims they aren’t like her.

She loves her friends too, but when he refuses to go out with them and she has to choose who to spend her time with, it gets harder.

Casey doesn’t want to be torn apart between the two, but when there are two options of programs on the table, she sees herself choosing Alex more and more, until she stops seeing her friends altogether.

She decides not to think about how utterly alone she feels when they don’t call her out anymore, and tries to rationalize that everything is fine.

“Was Derek here last night? “

Casey glances distractedly to her husband, from where she stands washing the dishes from breakfast, while he stores the things they had used in their due places.

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

She hears him sigh from somewhere behind her. “You know I don’t like having people over, dear.” 

“Oh.” Casey pauses in her speech to scrap a particularly dirty dish. “He just dropped by unannounced.”

“Tell him to call next time.” 

The problem, though, was that growing up with Derek hadn’t warranted her a lot of privacy. They did things like this since they were fifteen. Small courtesies like knocking on the door before getting in were virtually inexistent, and, when they had moved to separate dorms, the natural transition had been to just show up at each other’s doorsteps unannounced. 

“Love, it’s Derek, I can tell him whatever it is, and he will still do as he pleases.” 

Alex scoffs. “That’s because he has absolutely no manners. Remember what he did in our wedding?”

It’s her turn to sigh. “Yes, Alex, I do, you said that a million times already. That’s just something he does normally.” 

“I don’t even know why you put up with him, Casey. I know he is your step brother, but I can’t see how you stand him. He is just so different from you.” 

She scrubs a plate with particular anger, then. Alex has no right or say in her relationship with Derek. As weird as it may appear to others, he had her back, and her best interests at heart in (almost) everything that he did, and, even though they fought, it was mainly due to little things, just because they liked it. 

She tries to squelch the anger she feels, but it’s useless.

“You can’t see how I can stand him?” Casey turns, giving up on trying to contain the feeling, with a dishrag perched on her shoulder, where she had hanged it to better use. “Well, dear, maybe it’s because you don’t know me that well, then!”

She can see Alex getting irritated with her, his movements getting sharper and curt, his eyes squinting while his hands grab the kitchen counter with unneeded strength. 

“Casey, I just don’t understand how you are able to genuinely like to spend time with him when you are so fundamentally different. You told me when I met you that you couldn’t stand the guy, and, then, I found out that you guys are practically glued at the hip! I mean, try to understand where I’m coming from. You _have_ to see reason.” 

Casey herself isn’t much sure of why she hangs out with Derek so much, even though they don’t seem to share any interests at all. It might be just a matter of habit, she considers, and habits are hard to break. (She still wore blue eyeshadow even after all these years, Derek just came with a package she never quite grew out of). 

“Alex. It’s complicated, ok?” She concedes with a frown. 

Alex scoffs. “I’m sure it is. The guy’s head over heels in love with you and you still hang around him like you owe him anything.” 

Casey stops, utterly shocked (she doesn’t want to acknowledge that it’s because he had dared touch the subject out loud, instead, she blames it on him). She throws the dishrag in the kitchen counter and turns his way, angered beyond any reasoning. 

“ _Hang around him like I owe him anything?_ ” Casey scoffs. “Alex, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but Derek is my step-brother! I don’t care about what you think of our relationship, but don’t ever say shit like that again. The mere idea that we may be in love is _laughable_.” 

Alex stares at her, then, like he realizes something in what she said. His eyes search her serious face, running through her crossed arms for a moment.

He snorts, green eyes furious, and runs his hand through his greying hair. 

“Yes, Casey, you are related, but the fact that he is in love with you is still true, and you have never told him to back off.” He affirms cold and decided. “And I know you have a friendship of sorts, but I will _not_ allow those things to happen anymore.”

Casey hates him with a passion right then, a feeling so strong it’s almost like a punch, something she has never felt toward him before. She wants to scream at him, stop that idiot mouth of his of uttering any more absurdities, but she only breathes heavily from her nose, counting from one to ten, and speaks, detached and cold from gritted teeth. 

“You don’t have any rights to allow me to do anything, Alex. My relationship with Derek will remain unaffected by however you feel, and I honestly don’t care about your issues with this.”

And here’s the deal. Derek is the one concession Casey isn’t ready to make for her relationship, no matter what Alex does or says. She’d be willing to let go of anything but him (because he is family, she rationalizes later, and she can’t let go of them – him especially, and doesn’t want to think deeper into why). 

They keep the fight for two days, until they reach a compromise, even though she knows she was harsh in her speech, and was in the wrong to disregard his feelings like she did, but she doesn’t go after him to try and apologize. Alex is the one who amends the situation. 

They don’t breech the topic of Derek anymore, for which Casey is glad.

They go out for the movies one time. It’s a Thursday night, because Alex has a dinner with the other Professors from his department on Friday, and they have to go, because it would be impolite not to show up for a function that had been scheduled months in advance. 

It was supposed to be her night to pick the movie, but Alex says he’s tired of romantic comedies, so they watch the movie he picks. Casey doesn’t really like it, but she doesn’t mind giving up her time to choose a movie to make him happy. 

  
Casey realizes that the love of her life can make it hard to love him sometimes. He still makes her breakfast and discusses Shakespeare with her like no one ever could, but there is something not quite right.

Alex wants to settle down and Casey acquiesces, because love needs compromise.

And Alex is smart and educated and cultured, but that is just not enough, most of the times. 

And she wonders if the love of her life was supposed to feel like this, or if maybe she was broken beyond repair, never meant for love, like a lost piece to a puzzle no one ever bothered to find.

(It hasn’t been her time to pick a movie for a long time, and she has just learned to accept that, if she wants to watch something, it’d be easier to just do it alone.

Casey loses count of how many movies she watches by herself).

It’s Christmas and the McDonald – Venturi residence in brimming with life. Everyone has come back for the holidays and the house looks like it’s about to explode. 

Since Derek and Casey went to college, their parents had moved upstairs, and turned Casey’s old room into Robbie’s nursery (and now his room), while they had moved to Derek’s old room. So Casey and Derek took turns to take the guest bedroom downstairs.

“It’s a good thing Alex is visiting his parents. We wouldn’t have had space for him otherwise.”

Her mother shakes her head, like she couldn’t possibly fathom the idea of having a house way too full.

“Nonsense. Of course we would have made space for him. The more, the merrier.”

“Yeah, _right_. You only say that because you and dad don’t have to fight Klutzilla here for a room.” Derek sputters from his place on the couch (his chair a long-forgotten memory, taken from the living room and moved to his dorm when he went to college, to his old apartment and then, finally, retired and exchanged for a better and more tasteful one in his new flat). “And anyway, he probably just wanted to stay the hell away from this bunch of wackos.”

Casey feels the need to cover for her husband in his absence, making her eyes wide to refuse Derek.

“That is not true! Alex adores all of you. He just... Wanted to see his parents, that’s all.”

“Yeah. And it is very normal for couples to spend Christmas apart. 

(Casey just wants to strangle him sometimes. Really. Its not a stretch, some far fetched idea she has in a spur of the moment). She kills the will to shriek at him, because then he would have known he was right.

“Derek, be nice. I’m sure he wanted to be here, right, Case?”

She smiles sweetly, and, though maybe there's something maniacal in that, refuses to just let him know he is kind of right.

“Yes, but his mother is ill, so he had to go visit her.” 

Derek simply stares at her, unfazed. He opens his mouth to say something that will probably make her miserable for the rest of the day, but then she pleads with her eyes. 

And Derek may have been a big jerk in his youth, but he had gotten better. Not at everything, but he had, at what was important. He still liked to nag her for the small, silly things she did, her quirks, to make fun of her for the crazy mistakes she still made, and her clumsiness. 

Through the years, though, he had learned when to let her be. He had the almost psychic ability to just know when he would push her too far (and , sometimes, when he was really upset at her, he had used it to hurt her too, and he could get to her like no one knew how).

So he rolls his eyes at her, and exhales heavily, turning to the TV to keep watching his game. She can’t put into words how thankful she is for that small gesture.

“Well, dear, it is just too bad he didn’t come, because you are helping me make our supper!”

She smiles wistfully at her mother, then. She loved the woman, but raising six children had made her less observant than she had been when Casey grew up (she missed her mom, sometimes, the woman she used to be).

They both leave for the kitchen, and when she passes through the couch, she ruffles Derek’s hair as a thank you. 

It’s Lizzie who figuratively corners her in their joined bedroom. 

Casey lies in the small mattress by the floor, scrolling her Instagram feed and making silly comments about celebrity gossip with her sister. They are both ready to sleep, and she is reminded of when they were little and used to sleep together, under made up sheet tents.

“So…” she starts, uncertain, after properly roasting celebrities for their choice of clothing to the latest award. She winces lightly before trying. “How are things going with Alex?”

Casey scowls. She doesn’t know if she is ready to brooch the topic yet, so she fiddles with the little bow of her pajamas, until she can muster a decent answer. 

“They are… fine, I guess.”

Lizzie stares at her pillow, afraid to meet her eyes. “Are you sure?”

Casey laughs, nervous. “Why wouldn’t I be?” 

Her sister looks deep into her eyes, doesn’t say a single word, just raises an eyebrow at her, and waits for her to crack. 

“I mean… of course we have problems, what couple doesn’t? But it’s all normal, we don’t even fight that much!” Lizzie waits patiently, knowing it’s always best to let Casey do the rambling than to intervene. “I guess he could be around a little more, but I don’t mind, I know he is busy.” 

Casey stops for a second, continues to play with the covers of her improvised bed, trying not to cry, because there was no reason for her to do that. She was fine, everything was wonderful. 

Liz tries once more. “Derek said you were lonely.” 

Casey’s jaw drops, baffled. “What? Of course not!” 

Silence always caves her.

“I may have a little more space than I’m used to, but… I think it’s good! I need the space.”

She knows Liz isn’t buying any of this, from the pitying look she sees in her brown eyes. There’s a moment they’re both sitting in their mattresses, facing one another, and Casey sees herself through her sister’s eyes. (The bags under her eyes, the bleak hair, dull expression, barely there smile, and she is afraid the sight is too close to a reality she is turning a blind eye to).

“Casey, you can tell me. Whatever it is.”

She can’t, though, because saying what she feels is to give up the notion that things will never be as perfect as she wills them to be. 

“I’m okay, Liz. Thanks for worrying.”

A beat, and a silence filled with more than words could ever say. 

“If you say so.” 

She really _was_ grateful for the worry. But that wasn’t enough to make her talk anymore. 

Maybe she was more mature for being able to hold her feelings within. 

Or maybe she was just a little sadder. 

Marti is the next to come to her, though she isn't as subtle or yielding as their sister. She barges into the room when Liz is in the shower, the next day. 

“Cut the crap, Casey, you didn't tell Lizzie because she is too weak to squeeze the truth out of you, but you won't win against me. So you better tell me what's wrong.”

She half laughs at Marti’s antics. Its harder to deny her than it is Liz. She is pushier, has less boundaries about personal space, and less regard for people's general willingness to share. But Casey is resolute in her decision. 

“Nothing's wrong, Marti.” She keeps reading her book. 

“Yeah, sure.” She can hear her scoffing. “Just spill.”

“I’m serious. It's normal couple stuff.”

Marti huffs and sits on the vacated bed. “I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about it, then.”

“Obviously.” She diverts her gaze from the page for a second, to add. “And, if I did, it wouldn’t be with my younger sister, who’s never even had a relationship that lasted more than two weeks.”

(In a way, Marti is so much like Derek sometimes. She never stops when faced with a challenge).

Marti shrugs. “Can’t help it if you only taught me to like assholes.” Then she pauses, turning her eyes in her direction quickly, like she just had an idea. “Maybe _that’s_ the problem with Alex.”

Casey snorts. “Alex isn’t an ass. Not even a bit.”  
  
Though her discovery has made Marti skeptical. 

“Well, you say that, but your track record disagrees.”

She would have refuted more strongly, but ghost Catherine was making her first appearance in Wuthering Heights, which was one of her favorite parts, so she limits her answer to a distracted “Alex is a pretty decent guy.”

“A pretty decent guy that’s making _Derek_ freak out.”

That gives Casey pause. Her eyes skip a line in the book.

“ _Derek's_ freaking out?”

Marti scowls, lightly taps her forehead. “Shit, you weren’t supposed to know”.

Casey is suddenly extremely upset. Her hands are shaking, and she catches herself actually shrieking, for the first time in years. She raises and shoves her book into Marti’s hands. There’s a brief moment when she catches herself heading for his old room, but then she remembers, and heads for the basement.

She stomps down the stairs and barges into the door. Derek lays on the bed, eating some leftover pizza and barely acknowledges her presence. 

“Why the hell are you talking shit about my relationship with Liz and Marti?”

Casey crosses her arms in front of her body. 

(It means nothing that this is the stance she uses to fight her husband. This is just her confrontational pose. And, anyway, she has always read too much into things that mean too little.)

Derek stumbles in the bed, caught off guard by the topic, and lets the pizza fall to the floor. He winces, but hurriedly sits to face her, frowning. 

“Case, listen, don’t get mad. I was worried. I just wanted to help.” He says with his hands in front of his body, like he is afraid she’ll hit him if she has the chance. (He’s right, she probably would). 

“You’re not helping, so _stop_ sticking your nose where no one’s asked you.” 

He exhales strongly through his nose, pinches the crook between his eyebrows, breathing long and heavily. 

“What did you expect me to do?” 

Casey sees herself acting like her younger self did, flailing her arms around, furious beyond measure. Even though Alex tried, he would never be able to make her feel as mad as Derek does. 

“ _Not_ get the whole family into my privet life, Derek! This is between Alex and I, and you had no right to put other people into that!” 

“I’m sorry, okay?” He stares right into her eyes, and she has learned to read when he means more than he says, because he gets this look in his eyes, jaw straight and mouth serious, like this pose now. “But I just can’t be the one to talk to you about your marriage, Casey. What did you expect me to do?” 

Casey yells the first thing that pops into her head. “Stay out of it, like a good brother would!” 

She knows instantly this is the wrong thing to say. 

Derek tenses, and speaks through his gritted teeth. “Fine. Whatever, Case. I’ll stay out of it, but don’t come crying to me when it goes wrong, because I won’t be there to hold your fucking hand when you finish boarding this train wreck.”

He doesn’t storm out, because this is his room, for Christ’s sake. She stands by the door for a minute, trying to put herself together. He lays on his bed, gritting his teeth, while she watches. He doesn’t look at her, so she just leaves. 

Casey and Derek had kissed a few times, before she had married Alex. It was a secret she held close to her heart, where no one else could see, and sometimes she thought about it, when she was sad. 

The first time, she had been rambling in his dorm room, complaining to him about her theater group, when he had wanted her to just leave him alone already, so that he could go off and do whatever it is that he used to do, in those days (so, probably booze or girl related). 

She had stopped just a second to draw in some air, while Derek stared at her, eyes suddenly serious. Casey distinctly remembers the crease between his brows, so uncharacteristically him, and how the words seemed to simply stop rushing from her mouth. She had mumbled his name, and watched as his eyes melted back into their beautiful, hit by sunlight brown. 

And she could almost feel the air around them stop, for a moment, like time had just been frozen (or maybe time had just been reduced to how many streaks of black there were in his iris, and how fast she was able to count them). And she had been so afraid, almost terrified. 

So she shakes her head and moves on, like nothing ever happened (it was an art form she had perfected through the years, brushing past things she didn’t want to acknowledge existed).

Derek’s eyes harden once more, his hands turning into fists, jaw set. Casey steps back, because talking isn’t enough to make the moment go away anymore, so she yells at him, because that is all she knows to do to make him runaway. 

But he runs his fingers through the locks of his hair, and voices, loudly, “Casey!”. She isn’t deterred, though, and, at this point, it would take a construction site to drown her words. 

That’s when she sees him get closer, feels his hands cradle her head, and the sharp press of his lips against hers. 

Casey can’t breathe (and she doesn’t want to know why, would rather think he’s hugging her so tight he’s cutting off her air supply, even when her hands tangle his hair). 

Their chests are heaving when they part, and she finishes her speech, while Derek watches her with an expression she can’t quite tell. 

“’And that was it.”

“Okay”, with his arms crossed. 

Casey stares him a little more, but he gives her no clue of what he’s thinking or feeling, just looks at his bare feet, waiting for her to complete her research. She finds nothing, though, so she throws an excuse and leaves through the front door, like she had never been there in the first place. 

Next time, it is Casey who kisses him. She can’t remember the exact reason, but it was at a party, and she sat at the kitchen counter, drunk beyond measure. She leaned too much into his chest, laughing of some silly thing he said, and next thing she knows, her lips are on his, more a peck than anything else.

Derek raises an eyebrow at her, but she disregards him, and he shrugs and pours them another glass of whatever drink they had available.

They lose count of how many times that happens and, even though Derek starts it most of the times, sometimes, Casey knows she is responsible as well. So they kiss in his car, in the library, her dorm, his dorm, on the couch, parties and, once, on her dance studio. 

She could have passed those moments as momentary lapses of judgement, if weren’t for the mistletoe incident. 

So, Derek got a job as an assistant director of a documentary and, at the end of the year, they do a small gathering to celebrate Christmas. But he is the youngest of the crew, and doesn’t want to go alone for a party full of people double his age, so he invites Casey to be his plus one. 

It’s an informal function, on the director’s house, and everyone from the crew will be there to celebrate. 

They arrive and are greeted by the house owner and director, a friendly guy in his late forties named Gary. He and his wife are the sweetest, nicest people she had ever had the pleasure of meeting, able to make her feel welcome in their home, like they knew her their whole life. 

Derek introduces her as Casey, with an arm around her waist, and everyone just assumes their relationship. She feels warm inside, like she had just drank a whole mug full of hot chocolate. Gary’s wife smiles and tells her how beautiful she is. 

She thinks she’ll feel out of place, but it never happens. Everyone is so nice and welcoming, all the time, she’s ecstatic (they don’t treat her like his step-sister, they treat her like his… _something_ , which makes her both exhilarated and terrified, a feeling she decides to analyze later). 

At the end of the night, they all put away the food and plates. She is taking a pile of dirty plates to be washed, when she bumps into Derek, and Gary’s wife beams. Everyone around them is screaming loudly, in a chorus, for them to kiss. 

Casey looks up and there, right above their heads, hangs a mistletoe, between the kitchen and the living room. Her hands are occupied with the dirty plates, and Derek scoffs at the crew, saying Casey would never kiss him when there was cleaning to be done. She rolls her eyes and mocks that he’s just afraid of breaking his ‘no PDA’ rule. 

He squints his eyes at her, then, like a challenge, and gets closer. Her hands are still busy, and when his nose bumps with hers, she grins and closes their distance.

Everyone claps at them, whistling and yelling. Derek holds her hips, and his lips taste like chocolate cake. When they stop, he kisses her nose, a silly smile playing on the corners of his mouth (never mind the matching one on her face). He grabs the pile from her hands and takes it to be washed, so when he sits on the arm of the couch she took as hers, she kisses his cheek as a thank you. She holds his hands on the car on the way home, squeezing his fingers between hers, as if she could hold on to that feeling forever.

This night feels like a glimpse to another reality, and she allows herself to dream that they had met during college. They would have fought, because they would still be them, but when he’d make a joke she would smile, because she has always thought he is one of the funniest people she has ever met. 

The next day, everything is back to normal, like nothing had ever happened, like none of this had any meaning, which hurts more than Casey cares to admit. 

She never lets Derek kiss her again, and, six months later, she meets Alex, and decides this is the chance the Universe has given her to move on. She takes it, jumps to it, with all her heart. 

Casey stands in Derek’s doorstep, fidgeting with the sleeves of her coat and gathering enough courage to knock. 

She knows she is the one who made him upset, so it’s only logical that she should be the one trying to apologize. But her mind doesn’t work like that when the subject is Derek related, and she has a system that works all on its own when it comes to him. It isn’t easy, most of the times, for her to admit she is wrong, because doing so is the equivalent of admitting defeat, but she is certain she is the one responsible for hurting him this time. 

She studies the knots of the wood, struggling to remain calm and collected, rehearsing the lines she had practiced in the mirror before coming here. Casey just knows he will be home today, because that is normally the day of the week he reserves for being productive at work, and is, therefore, drained and has no energy left to do anything other than watch TV sprawled on his couch. 

She can hear the sports channel from the doorstep, where she stands with her eyes closed. She counts to ten, like she always does, and finally rings. 

Casey can hear scrambling on the other side, the noise of his center table being pushed aside, she has barely time to think and then Derek is opening the door and staring right at her, eyes so hard they’re almost black (she hates it when they get this dark, thinks it can’t compare to the caramel tone it gets when he smiles). 

“Can I come in?” She moves the weight of her body from one foot to the other, in a nervous gesture. 

He says nothing, faces her with a blank expression, but opens the door wide and gives a step aside, anyways, so that she can get in. 

Casey crosses her arms above her chest, biting her lip while Derek sits on the couch, ignoring her. She guesses she deserves this, his cold shoulder. She watches as he continues to pretend she isn’t there, grabs the remote and lowers the volume of the TV. She assumes this is probably his cue for her. 

“I’m sorry.” She says, eyeing her boots. “It was wrong of me to get mad at you for worrying about me. I know you didn’t mean to… just _pry_. I get where you were coming from and… thanks.” She steals a glance at him, notices him staring resolutely at the screen in front of him, barely blinking. “I just wanted to tell you this.”

She takes a heavy breath, closing her eyes for a moment, before she turns for the door again. 

“I wasn’t. Worried, I mean.” He clears his throat. “Just so you know.”

“Okay.”

“Its just that you were being really clingy and that’s annoying as shit. God, I hate it when you’re clingy.” He runs a hand through his hair, messing up the locks. “Reminds me of Kendra. So I had to set you straight. Or, as straight as it’s possible, anyway.”

Derek is rambling. It’s not something he does often, that move comes right off her book, one of her signature moves. It’s a rarity for him to lose his cool, so she lingers on the door, staring at him. 

“I appreciate it, anyway.”

She turns to leave again, but she hears him tell her. 

“Case. I know what I said earlier about… stuff, but still. You’ve always made me your shrink. As long as you bring me booze to keep me sedated I don’t mind listening.”

She smiles sadly at him, with his serious face and heavy brows, still sitting on the couch and looking like nothing she had ever dreamed of. 

“I’ll keep that in mind, Doc.” She kicks at the floor, trying to lighten the mood before she goes. “Do you have any useful advice that I could use?”

Derek smirks, and her insides _definitely don’t_ completely melt, because Alex is the only man she has ever loved, and is the only person capable of lifting her off her feet.

“You only ever listen when I tell you what you want to hear.”

There are many things she could have said to that, but all of them would have led to an argument, and she’s tired of fighting him, all it did was lead them to the same place where they began, like an endless circle they could never get out of. So he sits on his couch, staring at her while she stares back, for a moment too long. He drops his head and rubs his eyes, and she finally leaves. 

They go out for the Movies with Marti as a chaperone one weekend. They all bicker trying to figure out what they want to see, and Casey and Derek get into a major fight. Marti gets pissed at them and buys them all tickets with the credit card she had secretly stolen from George, for a movie that none of them really wanted, but it’s a middle ground. 

Derek sits between the two girls, a huge bag of popcorn sitting on his lap. He doesn’t want to share, but Casey steals some anyway. He pretends to be annoyed, stuffing a handful of it and shoving it all in her mouth. She chokes a little, but swallows it all. There’s a few that are spilled on her skirt, and she gathers them all to throw in his head when no one’s looking. 

“You guys are really dumb” Marti says, quietly eating from her own bag. 

Casey doesn’t think Marti is talking about the popcorn fight, so she just drinks her soda, concentrating hard on the actors in front of her. 

Derek makes his first movie that really counts, with a story and full fledged characters. It was still quite amateur, but still, she was so proud she could barely keep the smile off her face. 

The premiere will take place in a film festival, of all places, and everyone from the family goes over to Toronto to watch. 

Casey spends over an hour getting ready, and Alex doesn’t say a word to her while he downs on his suit, barely even acknowledges they are in the same room, but he goes all the same (if they were speaking, he’d probably say it would be rude not to show up). 

They sit by Derek’s side, and she throws him the bright grin she’s been using all day, because at this point she can’t help herself, she feels so proud she could probably burst. He looks at her for a while, with a look she can’t place, and smiles sadly. 

The movie starts, and Casey watches as a nameless man goes through his life after losing his chance on love. The camera doesn’t show the woman, only glimpses of her, like a hand, her hair, the corner of her smile when he tells a joke. All the while, it alters between present and past, and the public can see how miserable the man is. 

It’s a sad movie, but not in a way that makes you want to cry. It’s more of a melancholic type of sad, where it makes you want to be quiet and alone.

Throughout of this, though, she knows she is seeing her own story, through Derek’s eyes, and she wants to do nothing but hold his hands into hers. 

She doesn’t. 

It’s one of the last scenes, and the nameless man meets a woman that finally makes him smile again. The color palette changes, and, for the first time, the camera broadens, to show the audience the whole scenario. A park. (This is the moment Casey feels her throat constrict, but she doesn’t shed a tear, holds on to her feelings). 

The screen goes black, and everyone thinks the movie is over, when there is a last scene. The camera focuses on a mistletoe, and Casey’s eyes go big as headlights. 

Suddenly they can see the mystery woman the nameless man fell in love with, while they kiss underneath the threshold. It fast forwards to all of the heartbreak that follows in under five seconds, and then the couple is smiling at each other, like this moment could last forever, and nothing will come after. 

That’s when the credits start to roll, and everyone is standing on their feet, everyone but Casey, who sits there, quietly, wanting to do nothing but pour all of her heart and go home. 

Alex taps her shoulder, and she sees him standing up, looking at her with dead set eyes. He claps, like the crowd around him, but he averts his gaze from her as soon as she stands.

Derek is by her side, and he doesn’t look a her either. 

All he had to tell her had already been said, anyways. 

Casey is taking a shower one day, rinsing the shampoo out of her hair, and it suddenly hits her that the real problem is that her and Alex are fundamentally different in how they view love.

Sometimes, she thinks he doesn’t see her for who she is. He sees her beautiful eyes, tender smile and caring (even through her sometimes neurotic) ways. 

He sees her as an extension of himself, so much so that their edges are blurred into one another, and she doesn’t know where he ends and she begins. 

She thinks it would have been fine, but he keeps treating her like an enemy territory he must conquer. Her ways and quirks, those are somewhat funny and kind of endearing, but who she is, the person she has fought to become, with thoughts and feelings, likes and dislikes of her own, are his to take. 

He incorporates her like a part of himself, until they are one (until she is him, and there is nothing left of her to be). 

Alex takes her, little by little, and it isn’t like love in romances, that bullshit about being one. This, this is being one, and he encompasses her, turns her into him. 

She sobs quietly in her towel and decides then that their relationship can’t be fixed. Casey doesn’t know if she is crying for the end of her marriage, or because she doesn’t recognize the person she’s become. 

Derek is the only person she trusts to help her pack her things. The tears she had to cry are mostly all shed, by this point, so he is almost certainly safe. 

Her playlist softly plays in the background, while Casey grabs her items from where they are, carefully storing them in cardboard boxes. She can hear Derek working on the kitchen, trying to be as quiet as she is, but the faint tinkle of silverware can still be heard from the bedroom. 

She is glad for the noise. It makes her feel less lonely, aware that he is in the next room for her, if she needs. 

Small things like that are the ones she is most grateful for.

She moves to the living room after an hour or so, where she can hear both the music and Derek louder. 

He comes in from the guest bedroom, staring at a small statue she had purchased when Alex and her had gone to Paris, in their honey moon. 

“Hey, Case” He announces from the door frame, staring at it. “Do you want to take this?” 

Casey eyes the statue, wondering if she thinks it’s pretty enough to make up for the bittersweet pang it brings to her guts when she looks at it. She raises from her place on the carpet, with her hands stretched to him, as he silently hands her the item. 

Derek looms over her, watching her evaluate the decoration in her hands. She bites her lips, undecided. “I’m not certain.”

He stares at her, eyes inquisitive.

This is when the first notes to her favorite song start playing from the speakers, the soft trumpet echoing in the room. She glances at the place where the music is coming from. 

This song reminds her of Alex. They had both been so in love with it, had shared its grandeur in privacy, like it had belonged to them exclusively. And maybe her eyes held a nostalgic tinge, because Derek gently grabs the statue from her hands, placing it on the dining table. 

Casey crosses her arms above her chest, and listens, fluttering her eyelids close. When she opens her eyes, she catches Derek watching her from near the chair, looking pensive. 

His eyes linger on her for a beat too long, and she knows he can see everything she tries to hide (always has, with an eerie sense of accuracy that is actually frightening).

Ever so slowly, he gets closer. He holds her hands into his, and she is hit with the intensity of his gaze, while he guides them to his shoulders and lets his arms circle her waist. He regards her with brown, honey colored eyes (and though Alex had green eyes, she thinks Derek's are so much prettier. She could spend hours staring into them, carefully studying their tones, how the light plays with the colors). Her eyes close once more, and Casey rests her head on his chest. She feels him moving his feet sluggishly from one side to the other, and she joins him in the cadence of the rhythm. 

He brings his lips close to the shell of her ear, and she catches him whispering to the lyrics so quiet he almost makes no sound at all.

_Hold me close and hold me fast, the magic spell you cast, this is La Vie en Rose._

She wasn’t aware he knew the words to it. She doesn’t want to think he has learned them for her, but a little part of her can’t help but feel like this is true. This isn’t a song she thinks he’d listen to, and she hummed it so often maybe he had gotten curious. (She can so clearly see him in his couch, with his reading glasses and headphones, searching for it in youtube that her chest aches). 

Listening to him, Casey shivers. It’s not until this moment that she realizes how much she has missed him, and she allows herself to drown into the feeling, clinging to him, clutching his neck with more force than is probably needed.

His breath slightly tickles her ear, and she catches herself wanting to giggle, but she holds on to the sound, while he sing whispers. Casey lets his breath warm her skin, making it tingle where it lands. She nuzzles him back gently, and feels her lips curving at the corners. 

This moment feels like a secret between them to keep. The faint smell of his cologne filling her nostrils with his scent, his soft voice echoing in her ear and her favorite song as a soundtrack. 

Casey may be surrounded by the memories of her failed marriage, her things scattered all over the apartment she had shared with a man who she’d pegged as the love of her life, but, in this moment, dancing in Derek’s arms, she doesn’t feel like a lost piece to a puzzle no one ever bothered to find.

She knows with clarity of day. This is what love is supposed to feel like.

And Casey knows there is nothing in the world that can come near perfection, but, somehow, this is as close to it as it gets. 

(And they don’t say I love you, but she feels it, anyway, so much it almost burns her skin, the mark of his name in there. They don’t say a lot of things, but they never had to. They have other ways of spelling things, better than words could ever say). 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was sponsored by quarantine (stay at home, wear masks when in public and wash your hands).   
> Thank you for reading. Reviews make my heart happy


End file.
